blems, discuss potential performance improvement programs that you can implement as a team.

Why would you do this you ask? Well, some people would think it’s probably a downer to spend time talking about your weaknesses, but top sales teams are constantly evaluating their own performance and looking for ways to continuously improve their sales effectiveness. By doing this, there’s a great opportunity for you to actually build consensus amongst your team about what the biggest challenges are that you face in your team, and what to do abou

If your company’s not hitting its revenue targets and underselling its competition, it’s really easy for senior managers and executives to blame the economy. The fact is though, that the economy is very robust right now, and despite high energy prices, it’s pretty clear that the economy is going to stay on a strong track. So unless your market is in a slump, the chances are that your company needs to take a hard look at sales from the perspective of its strategy, process, and people.

It’s not easy to look inward, and we all have a tendency to blame external factors when it comes to underperformance in our sales teams, but the fact is that those of us who have been in the trenches leading and running sales teams for a long time, know that the buck stops with us.

While it’s hard to point fingers at ourselves, it’s absolutely the mark of a top sales leader to do that and to do it quickly when the company is not hitting its sales goals. If you’re a sales leader and your company’s not achieving it’s targets, the first question you should ask yourself is, “am I satisfied with the efforts of my people?” If the answer to this is yes, move on to the next subject. “Are we focusing on the right customers with the right sales process?” If the answer is yes, then we need to dig in and take a look deeper to figure out exactly which of these areas is deficient.

I find that it’s very useful to use a sales score carding processes with my team in order to achieve this result. We use this scorecard with our clients. If you go to the homepage of our website (http://www.cubemanagement.com), you’ll find a copy of our sales scorecard to download. My suggestion is this: take that scorecard and make copies for all of your team members. Then each of you individually complete the scorecard and rate yourself in the critical areas of strategy, process, and people. Then after each of you have done this exercise individually, come together as a team and walk through the scores that you’ve assigned to each of those areas, one by one. Circle the areas where you have the lowest scores, and talk about them as a team. Once you’ve gained agreement on the root cause of the problems, discuss potential performance improvement programs that you can implement as a team.

Why would you do this you ask? Well, some people would think it’s probably a downer to spend time talking about your weaknesses, but top sales teams are constantly evaluating their own performance and looking for ways to continuously improve their sales effectiveness. By doing this, there’s a great opportunity for you to actually build consensus amongst your team about what the biggest challenges are that you face in your team, and what to do about

y to blame external factors when it comes to underperformance in our sales teams, but the fact is that those of us who have been in the trenches leading and running sales teams for a long time, know that the buck stops with us.

While it’s hard to point fingers at ourselves, it’s absolutely the mark of a top sales leader to do that and to do it quickly when the company is not hitting its sales goals. If you’re a sales leader and your company’s not achieving it’s targets, the first question you should ask yourself is, “am I satisfied with the efforts of my people?” If the answer to this is yes, move on to the next subject. “Are we focusing on the right customers with the right sales process?” If the answer is yes, then we need to dig in and take a look deeper to figure out exactly which of these areas is deficient.

I find that it’s very useful to use a sales score carding processes with my team in order to achieve this result. We use this scorecard with our clients. If you go to the homepage of our website (http://www.cubemanagement.com), you’ll find a copy of our sales scorecard to download. My suggestion is this: take that scorecard and make copies for all of your team members. Then each of you individually complete the scorecard and rate yourself in the critical areas of strategy, process, and people. Then after each of you have done this exercise individually, come together as a team and walk through the scores that you’ve assigned to each of those areas, one by one. Circle the areas where you have the lowest scores, and talk about them as a team. Once you’ve gained agreement on the root cause of the problems, discuss potential performance improvement programs that you can implement as a team.

Why would you do this you ask? Well, some people would think it’s probably a downer to spend time talking about your weaknesses, but top sales teams are constantly evaluating their own performance and looking for ways to continuously improve their sales effectiveness. By doing this, there’s a great opportunity for you to actually build consensus amongst your team about what the biggest challenges are that you face in your team, and what to do abou

e efforts of my people?” If the answer to this is yes, move on to the next subject. “Are we focusing on the right customers with the right sales process?” If the answer is yes, then we need to dig in and take a look deeper to figure out exactly which of these areas is deficient.

I find that it’s very useful to use a sales score carding processes with my team in order to achieve this result. We use this scorecard with our clients. If you go to the homepage of our website (http://www.cubemanagement.com), you’ll find a copy of our sales scorecard to download. My suggestion is this: take that scorecard and make copies for all of your team members. Then each of you individually complete the scorecard and rate yourself in the critical areas of strategy, process, and people. Then after each of you have done this exercise individually, come together as a team and walk through the scores that you’ve assigned to each of those areas, one by one. Circle the areas where you have the lowest scores, and talk about them as a team. Once you’ve gained agreement on the root cause of the problems, discuss potential performance improvement programs that you can implement as a team.

Why would you do this you ask? Well, some people would think it’s probably a downer to spend time talking about your weaknesses, but top sales teams are constantly evaluating their own performance and looking for ways to continuously improve their sales effectiveness. By doing this, there’s a great opportunity for you to actually build consensus amongst your team about what the biggest challenges are that you face in your team, and what to do abou

corecard to download. My suggestion is this: take that scorecard and make copies for all of your team members. Then each of you individually complete the scorecard and rate yourself in the critical areas of strategy, process, and people. Then after each of you have done this exercise individually, come together as a team and walk through the scores that you’ve assigned to each of those areas, one by one. Circle the areas where you have the lowest scores, and talk about them as a team. Once you’ve gained agreement on the root cause of the problems, discuss potential performance improvement programs that you can implement as a team.

Why would you do this you ask? Well, some people would think it’s probably a downer to spend time talking about your weaknesses, but top sales teams are constantly evaluating their own performance and looking for ways to continuously improve their sales effectiveness. By doing this, there’s a great opportunity for you to actually build consensus amongst your team about what the biggest challenges are that you face in your team, and what to do abou

blems, discuss potential performance improvement programs that you can implement as a team.

Why would you do this you ask? Well, some people would think it’s probably a downer to spend time talking about your weaknesses, but top sales teams are constantly evaluating their own performance and looking for ways to continuously improve their sales effectiveness. By doing this, there’s a great opportunity for you to actually build consensus amongst your team about what the biggest challenges are that you face in your team, and what to do about them. By using the sales scorecard process, and building consensus about change, you’ll get everyone on the same page and create a sense of ownership and responsibility for creating a new outcome. We’ve used this with the Western regional sales team for the largest insurance brokerage in the U.S., and is formed the basis for their performance improvement plan. This is a very healthy way to bring your team along and empower them to be part of the solution to whatever ills your sales.

So if the economy continues to stay strong, and your company is still underselling, ask yourself , “why is it?”

Is it the economy? Or is it us?